


Tomorrow is Yesterday:  Litte Green Men

by Cheree_Cargill



Series: Glimpses of a Life [24]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12831978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheree_Cargill/pseuds/Cheree_Cargill
Summary: After their inadvertent journey back to the 20th century and Captain Christopher's comment about "little green men", Spock considers some particular aliens that have long been under observation.





	Tomorrow is Yesterday:  Litte Green Men

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek characters are the property of Paramount Studios, Inc. The story contents are the creation and property of Cheree Cargill and is copyright (c) 2003 by Cheree Cargill. This story is Rated PG.

_Stardate: 3115.3, Personal Log. First Officer Spock recording._

 

"I never have believed in little green men," Captain Christopher said as he stepped onto the bridge with Captain Kirk.

I saw Kirk's eyes cut over to me and the barely contained smirk that pulled at his lips. On cue, I turned toward the two and calmly interjected, "Neither have I."

The look on Captain Christopher's face was highly amusing as he stared at this "big green man", just as Jim intended that he do. I was happy to play along. Despite our rather dire circumstances, we were recovering well and had not yet realized the gravity of our situation.

But all that is logged in my official report. We are home once again, in our own time and our own place, and I have found myself contemplating the remark so lightly made in passing. Little green men...

The irony is that there are, of course, a number of races that might quality for that moniker. The S'Rotin of Alpha Cignae 3 rise no more than 3 to 4 feet in height and are distinctly green in skin coloring. The Tang subgroup of the higher race of Vegans are quite diminutive and their exoskeletons have a verdant hue when the sunlight glances off their carapaces. All of the Vulcanoid species have copper-based blood and therefore our skin is greenish. But I understand the connotation of Captain Christopher's remark. It means "alien." "Extraterrestrial." "Not of this Earth."

It is difficult now to imagine that there was a time when Terrans believed they were alone in the universe. In Captain Christopher's time, in 1967, it was still almost one hundred years before First Contact with the Vulcans. Humans had not even made it as far as their moon and their space program was still in its infancy. That year, in fact, the United States had witnessed its first hard lesson in the realities of the dangers of space travel. Three of their astronauts had died in a fire on the launch pad while testing their first moon vehicle.

As spacefarers for nearly a thousand years, we Vulcans have learned that lesson many times over. It is never one to be taken lightly. Even now our fleet of merchant ships and home guard have the lesson reinforced upon them from time to time and I fear for the new Federation ship _Intrepid_ with its all-Vulcan crew. I know all too well what dangers are faced by Starfleet here on the frontier and the mortality rate among the exploration ships is high as we push ever forward.

But I digress... I was discussing Earth in the late 20th century. They were beginning to reach out, to search for other life, but the majority of their peoples were blissfully ignorant of the vast number of civilizations and races of beings just beyond their doorsteps. _We_ knew the third planet of the Sol system was inhabited but it was a pre-warp civilization and our laws forbade any interaction with it. Others were not so scrupulous, however.

There was a group who had been surveying and using Earth for centuries, perhaps millennia, as a stopover port on their trade routes and had even attempted several aborted colonies in the distant past, if historical records are accurate. They had no moral difficulty with intermingling in Human affairs, going so far occasionally as to allow the locals to believe them to be gods or demons, as they chose. Indeed, so far ahead were they of Humans technologically, they might have logically been viewed that way by a more primitive race. With such aplomb, they carried out experiments with scant effort at concealment, from atmospheric tests to their final and most audacious scheme of generation-long breeding experiments on the Humans themselves. As such activities increased, they _did_ take pains not to be photographed or seen in their real form, using mind control to make their victims see something more familiar, but inevitably their activities became known and communicated in the popular media of the day, although those Humans who attempted to broadcast their knowledge were widely regarded as crackpots and mentally unstable. Few believed.

This gave the aliens even more confidence in their actions. Their activities became even more rampant, resulting in interbreeding experiments between themselves and Humans. Why they would do this has never been fully explained. No one has ever successfully penetrated their hive mentality to learn their ultimate goal. It simply continued throughout the 20th century and well into the 21st. It was not until post-Contact, when Earth came under the nominal protection of Vulcan, that the abduction and genetic experiments were finally brought to a close.

I refer, of course, to the Ch'k'ach, the natives of Zeta 2 Reticulum 4. We had long known of them and kept them under observation, but as long as they did not interfere with any planet under our auspices, we were content to look the other way. But in the middle of the 20th century, the Zetans became allied with the Gorn and it was then that the Humans themselves came into play as subjects for the breeding experiments. Some Vulcans believed that this was at the instigation of the Gorn but again no proof has ever been forthcoming.

Many on Vulcan argued for intervention and the debate went on for years. But our non-interference laws prevailed. The most we could do was wait and watch. Earth was an open planet, not within our jurisdiction, and the Zetans had every right to claim it if they chose. But still we kept them under surveillance and it was for that reason that Captain Sakkat and the _Kya'shin_ were within the Sol system when Zephram Cochrane made his first warp flight. It was the opportunity we had been awaiting. Now that the Humans had developed warp capability, we could contact them without violating our own laws.

The Ch'k'ach were not at all pleased, naturally. They had been adversaries of the Free Worlds for a very long time and this simply amplified the problem. I believe that the Gorn attack on Cesstus III may be related to the animosity that continues between our respective governments. As far as I know, the inhabitants of the Cesstus station have never been accounted for and the Federation negotiators have made little or no progress in locating them.

The Ch'k'ach do not abandon plans millennia in the making. They are persistent and clever. Following Cesstus, my father brought all the knowledge we had of their activities to the Federation Security Council. A plan of action is now being discussed but, of course, I am not privy to those discussions. My purview is solely that of the USS _Enterprise_ and our assigned quadrant of patrol. But it is my firm belief that we have not seen the last of these particular "little green men".

THE END


End file.
